stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out upon the shallow conceit!" Of the hopeless banality of the critics during this period there are plenty of examples to be found without looking very far. Several of the most amusing have been embodied in a little volume of "Whistler Stories," lately compiled by Mr Don C. Seitz of New York. Here we find _The Standard's_ little joke about Whistler paying his costs in the action--apart from those allowed on taxation, that is to say--"But he has only to paint, or, as we believe he expresses it 'knock off' three or four 'symphonies' or 'harmonies'--or perhaps he might try his hand at a Set of Quadrilles in Peacock Blue?--and a week's labour will set all square." Then there is this priceless revelation of his art when questioning his class in Paris. "Do you know what I mean when I say tone, value, light, shade, quality, movement, construction, etc.?" _Chorus_, "Oh, yes, Mr Whistler!" "I'm glad, for it's more than I do myself." More serious was the verdict of Sir George Scharf, keeper of the National Gallery, when (in 1874) there was a proposal to purchase the portrait of Carlyle. "Well," he said, icily, on looking at the picture, "and has painting come to this!" High place, it would seem, did not always conduce to an appreciation of high art. Here is the opinion of Sir Charles Eastlake, F.R.I.B.A., also keeper of the [Illustration: PLATE XLIX.--J. M. WHISTLER LILLIE IN OUR ALLEY _In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq._] National Gallery, published in 1883, on one of Rembrandt's pictures in the Louvre:-- "_The Bath_, a very ugly and offensive picture, in which the principal object is the ill-proportioned figure of a naked woman, distinguished by flesh tones whose colour suggests the need of a bath rather than the fact that it has been taken. The position of the old servant wiping the woman's feet is not very intelligible, and the drawing of the bather's legs is distinctly defective. The light and shade of the picture, though obviously untrue to natural effect, are managed with the painter's usual dexterity." V THE ROYAL ACADEMY The last revolt of the nineteenth century was effected in a peaceable and business-like, but none the less successful manner, by the establishment, in 1886, of the New English Art Club as a means of defence against the mighty _vis inertiae_ of the Royal Academy. As an example of the disadvantage under which any artist laboured who did not bow down to the great Idol, I venture to quote a few sentences from the report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to inquire into the administration of the Chantrey Trust, in 1904:---- "With five exceptions, all the works in the collection have been bought from summer exhibitions of the Royal Academy."